WEEK 14 - Day 55 Dismantling West Gable & Final Work to Stove House 5

The unsafe sections of the west gable of Stove house 1 were dismantled today. The area will be protected by sheeting over the winter.

The curved section of wall may incorporate the original garden wall of the entrance to the Red Lion Hotel, after which the salt works was named can be seen more clearly now. At this height the wall curves and has a sleight batter as it rises from the road level. it is also one and a half bricks wide.

The final remnants of Stove House 5 were removed from site this afternoon, all the parts not being saved for reuse that is.

There will be some before-and-after photographs posted next week to show how the site has changed over the last fourteen weeks.

WEEK 14 - Day 54 More Cleaning, Digging and Dismantling

Having drafted in a hydraulic pick the base of Pan House 5 finally gave in and was broken up ready for removal. The last lorry movements carrying the debris will leave for the landfill site tomorrow.

The gable of Warehouse 1 is now being carefully dismantled with each section of brick being stored on separate pallets. The wall has been repaired over many years - it was part of the original works dating to 1894 but has been rebuilt and a loading doorway bricked up. Each part of its history can be read by looking carefully at the different bricks and mortar sections. The inner and outer bricks from each phase are being stacked separately so that they can be rebuilt in the full restoration phase later next year.

As the salt works expanded Henry Ingram Thompson constructed a new Pan House and Stove House along the edge of Ollershaw Lane, joining it to the earlier warehouse by cutting out a section of the roof on the south side. This image is taken from within the much larger Warehouse 3, looking north to the roof structure of Warehouse 1. The gable being dismantled is to the left, fronting Ollershaw Lane.

Further shot blasting to clean the salt pan removed from Pan House 5 took place using recycled glass pellets, so that it can be painted. The weather is fantastic with warm autumn sunshine, excellent for getting all these final jobs completed.
A careful evaluation of the whole site was also undertaken today to identify any further pockets of contamination that might still be on site.

WEEK 13 - Day 51 Clearing Salt, Stove House 5 and Laying Paths

Salt can set like concrete once it gets into the fabric of a building and is baked hot and stays dry.
Within stove Hose 1 we had to chip out the remaining salt with a percussion hammer.
The flue walls in this area have been robbed out many years ago but the remains of the walls indicate the layout of the flues and ditches which ducted the hot fumes from the Pan House to the chimney built on Ollershaw Lane.



Meanwhile the big digger spent a fourth day removing the ash, cinders and flue walls from the dismantled Stove House 5.
Over 100 tons of material has been removed from site. The materials which made up the infill of the stove house were themselves waste products of the Lion Salt Works. Henry Thompson used waste cinders deposited at the south side of the site that were raked from the earlier pan houses over decades of salt making.

Alongside all the dismantling and removal of contaminants we are also being constructive and looking to the future. Sue Beesley and Isabel Brookes have begun the creative landscaping that will transform the south west corner of our salt works into a tranquil butterfly garden in partnership with George Martin and the Butterfly Conservation gardening volunteers.

WEEK 13 - Day 48 Stove House 1 and Stove House 5

Activities today involve dismantling three areas - the gable of Warehouse 1, salt from within Stove 1 and the stove area of Stove House 5.

To carry out the work safely external cladding has been erected along the side of the building.

Portable conveyor belting was installed to easy the manual handling of the salt debris from the stove area.

You can now really see that the stove area ran off from the Pan House at the first floor level. The machine tearing up the ash and cinders is really working hard because salt and brine has soaked into the fabric of the brickwork and the cinder base, setting like concrete in the high heat of the salt making process.

WEEK 12 - Day 47 West Gable Stove House 1

The west gable of Stove House 1 fronts Ollershaw Lane. The different types of bricks show the endless repairs that has been necessary to this gable since it was built in 1894.

The south side (right) is a curved wall at its base which was built on the line of a garden wall which led into the Red Lion Hotel, after which the salt works was named. Salt Pan 1,which was to the left, was built in the coal yard of the Red Lion Hotel, between the Hotel and the Trent and Mersey Canal. The window at road level provided light into the stove area. The doorway was used to wheel salt from the warehouse floor to the Salt Store on the opposite side of Ollershaw Lane.

Ollershaw Lane becomes narrow here as it approaches the hump backed bridge over the canal, and there are no footpaths at the side of the road.

To provide safe access for the erection of a scaffold 'stop - go' boards had to be used to control the flow of traffic past the stove house.

The scaffolding will allow safe working as the brickwork is dismantled. Each rebuilding phase will be taken down in sequence and stored on separate pallets for re-use when this part is rebuilt.

A metal hoarding will be erected on the scaffold to keep the site safe and secure.

WEEK 11 - Day 42 Preparing Pan 5 for Lifting and Warehouse 1

All the steel girders were inserted beneath Pan 5 by mid morning today. These now need to have packing inserted between the top of the girders and the underside of the pan so that the pan is fully supported when it is lifted and moved.

The lifting beams will be bolted together tomorrow ready for the lift to take place early next week.

Preparatory work was completed for a final piece of laser scanning to capture data within the drying area of the earliest building on site. This is the remains of Warehouse and Stove House 1, built in the 1890's but heavily altered as other salt houses were added. The structure was heavily cut away as Stove House 2 and 3 were added to its north and south elevations.
The brick flues have been robbed out, cast iron column which should support the floor above have been lost, corroded away or have collapsed and half the roof had fallen in allowing the weather to decay a lot of the floor boards. having said all that the roof trusses are in good condition and can be incorporated into the restoration works of Phase 2. This area gives you that 'stepping back in time' feeling as you absorb the atmosphere of standing inside a Victorian salt works, and you can see how the stove house we are currently dismantling has been built in the same traditional way, to the same design - to do the same job of evaporating brine and making white salt crystals.

Some of the trusses have carpenters marks. This one is numbered 'I I' for the second truss - but is in the middle of the roof structure. So, either the frames were put up out of sequence, or the frames might have been recycled from an earlier building. Other trusses are numbered 'V' and IV'. Where a brace has been

inserted a small cross '+' has been cut unto the upright beam to indicate where it was to be positioned.

The end gable, which will be dismantled as part of our Enabling Works, has remains of lime wash on the inner surface. All the brickwork and timbers were lime washed to protect them from the salt and stop loose flakes of brick or timber from contaminating the stock piles.

Ironwork has not survived well, particularly in areas which have been damp, or wet from ingress of rain. However in this area one hatch cover still survives with its original iron ring.

WEEK 8 - Day 31 Consolidating Scaffolding and Cleaning

Today was a day of preparation before moving into new areas around the site.
We needed to scaffold up areas around Salt Pans 3 and 4 to provide inspection walkways for the architects.
Next week we move into the earliest stove houses and warehouses for Salt Pans 1 and 2. The ground areas have elements of collapsed roof structures which need clearing to allow the scaffold team access. Later, the build up of salt from the stove areas will be removed as this is holding a reservoir of damp inside the buildings leading to continual decay.
Our perimeter fencing is quickly being installed. Each of the posts is being hand dug because the fence line is either within the scheduled monument area, or is inaccessible to machines, but is should be all in place by the end of next week.


The scaffolding has been repositioned within the loading bay to allow decayed roofing from the Packing Area to be tidied away. To the North (right) of the Packing Area the western end of the Link Bridge between Stove House 5 and Stove House 2 is being photographed and recorded before it too is removed.
The ridge in the centre of the picture is one of the earliest parts of the salt works dating to the 1890's.


Below the Packing Room floor is a passage way that runs beneath Stove House 1 towards the canal. The collapsed staircase used to rise to a landing and door on the north end of Stove House 3. The door was later bricked up. This area is now lit by daylight because both the floor above, which connected Warehouse 2 to Warehouse 4, and the roof has collapsed in this area.